


Let Me Still Be What You Want

by mansikka



Series: Filling In The Gaps [32]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, POV Magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 03:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka
Summary: Magnus knows they need to talk. The question is how to begin?





	Let Me Still Be What You Want

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :) another coda of sorts, this time from Magnus' point of view, set inside/outside Hunters Moon in the finale.
> 
> Happy reading :) x

Courage. Courage is not the thing that he is feeling, yet he is skilled in hiding behind a mask of bravado, slinging back his drink as though it’s not the thing steadying him, and pretending everything is fine.

Except with _him_. 

Magnus feels Alec approach without having to even look for him, sure the air shifted and parted just for Alec to come stand by his side. And now that he’s stood there, it’s so very hard to listen to what he’s telling him. The small talk they’re making sounds easy to outside ears yet to Magnus is brittle, fracturing in chunks, and the words are hard to make out when it feels like he’s dying inside.

Is this all they can be now? Small talking acquaintances, sharing wistful smiles for all they could have been if he had just stayed to listen. If Alec had just found the way to talk. If, if, if; so many of them, clambering for attention, stacking and stumbling over each other in a discarded heap representing all that he’s lost. _They’ve_ lost, Magnus amends, because he’s sure he can feel sorrow resonating from Alec as well, is adamant he can see the same regret he has peering out from behind his eyes.

Is this goodbye?  

He’s so soft, so gentle with him, Magnus thinks, his heart catching, and is sure Alec has a tone of voice that is reserved wholeheartedly for him. And it hurts so much to hear it, because it feels so comforting, so right; a voice shouldn’t feel like home, Magnus tells himself, but it does, _Alec_ does. Alec is the home that Magnus has always longed for, the anchor that he’d resigned himself to never knowing.

_Please don’t let this be a goodbye…_

After toasting, Magnus watches Alec raise the bottle of beer to his lips, wishes it was another place, another time when it was champagne and just the two of them, far from troubles and the pain of sacrifices, when they could pause for a moment and think only of them. But that’s not what’s happening here; they’re celebrating a victory, a meeting of worlds that have always been difficult and jarring, and Magnus doesn’t feel much like celebrating anything anyway. Celebrating is a bittersweet nothingness, if the price of it is that he’ll always be alone.

“Can we talk?”

It’s practice that ensures Magnus’ glass doesn’t slip from his fingers, keeps it firmly there in his grip despite the sweat of his palm. It takes a moment for the breath stuck in his throat to release itself and allow him to speak, and even then, all he can manage is a wispy _yeah_. Because if talking means a farewell, Magnus is sure he might lose hold on himself entirely, and he isn’t ready for it. He’ll never be ready for it, but now is apparently that moment, and it is waiting for him whether he’s prepared for it or not.

Alec doesn’t wait for him, just strides past as though knowing he will follow, though Magnus knows that set of his shoulders. He sees the tension, the nerves there, and can practically feel the fear, but the question is, what is it Alec is fearing? Some kind of retribution when he tells Magnus that their fleeting time is over, or cruel words that will just seal his certainty that they are done? Magnus has no idea, but the liquor remaining in his glass isn’t enough to give him courage, so he drains it more for something to do, stalling when that’s the last thing he should be doing. He follows Alec out, darting his eyes everywhere but at him until he has to look, he has to, and offers up a smile that he hopes shows he fears just as much.

“Magnus, I’m sorry…”

Does Alec know he speaks his name like he is cherished? How many times is Alec going to say those very words to him, Magnus thinks, hearing the rest of it without wanting to, tucking himself up as small as he can make himself to shield against whatever is to come. Alec has been at fault here, and on other occasions, but it’s been playing on Magnus’ mind these awful few days just how much he can also be at fault as well. He has rarely offered up his own apologies, and if he counts up all of their _I love yous_ , he’s hard pressed to find any that were instigated by himself. Does Alec always think he is the one at fault for everything? The one who needs to be making the declarations of their love? Are Magnus’ gestures that he always intends to do all the same things ever going to be enough for him to notice?

Alec nods, and Magnus is desperate to know what he’s thinking, though more desperate to tell him all that’s in his own heart instead; that he’s missed him, that he loves him, that he wants him to be his equal. That he’ll put in all the effort in the world, if he is still what Alec wants.

_Please let me still be what you want…_

“...fights…” Magnus hears, and he doesn’t know what to do with that, doesn’t know if he should be encouraged by Alec’s apparent refusal to see their time apart as anything but an extended argument, or feel even more terror about never again having him by his side.

“...I can’t think straight…” comes next, and Magnus wants to laugh, because his thoughts of Alec have always been convoluted. Alec represents so much that he detests in this world, yet his heart is so big, and he cares so much; how could it not twist and turn his mind and gut in knots.

And it’s not like the same isn’t true for him, not in this period of loneliness Alec is speaking of. From Alec’s shirts folded into his closet, to the book upended on the bedside cabinet that Alec had been reading what was really just a few nights ago; everywhere Magnus looks, there is Alec. Every sentence he constructs is flavored with Alec’s words, every image ghosting with his smile. It shouldn’t have been possible for Magnus to have missed Alec as much as he has, because really, Alec has never left. He’s never not been right there with him in his mind.

“I can’t do anything without thinking of you,” Magnus says anyway, because it’s simple and the truth, encompassing the basics of the hole left in him in Alec’s wake.

But what if what comes next from Alec is a list of reasons about why this distance between them has been a good thing and should continue to grow? What if he’s about to tell him he is too much of a risk, too much trouble, too much of a drain on his time?

Magnus braces himself, squeezes his arms around his waist that little bit tighter, as though preventing any air from getting in the gaps will make the hurt that’s about to fall on him that much less. It isn’t; losing the love of your life is never anything but winding, he knows that. He’d thought he’d known that kind of love once, but this? This with Alec, this is true like nothing else. They might both share fault for throwing it away and not cherishing it as they should have done, but Magnus, Magnus can’t feel anything but guilt, self-loathing and doubt. He holds his breath, memorizing every feature of Alec’s face, and braces himself for a goodbye.

“...I don’t think I can live without you…”

Not that he isn’t aware of his own leanings towards being a drama queen, but Magnus is convinced that his heart actually stops. He stares back at Alec as though he can put him on pause, rewind the very words he’s just spoken and have them played again in stereo, more crystal clear, so there is no risk of mistaking a single one of them. And then Alec does the next best thing to giving him exactly that; that tiniest of headshakes he does that adds depth to his meaning, that makes Magnus’ heart ache and soar in equal parts every time he gets to witness it.

Magnus needs a moment to pause, to collect himself, so cuts off whatever retort was working its way out of his mouth without his consent. Because this isn’t a platitude, or a half-meant statement; this is real. Alec believes every word of it; it may as well be etched into his skin alongside all those runes of his for how much he clearly means it. And Magnus is overwhelmed. He’s not sure how he’s still upright given the drain of his magic all day, but this? This is the thing surely to bring him crashing to his knees.

Maybe Alec is anchoring him, Magnus thinks, even with this horrendous, cavernous gap still between them, and the very idea bolsters him just enough to find his own words.

“I thought I had to choose…” he begins to say, with further words tumbling out, and the look on Alec’s face, that half, hopeful smile that says he too is holding his breath, is the thing that cracks Magnus’ voice. But he squeezes himself tighter still, pleads with himself for a few more seconds of courage, wills himself to say, and do the right thing.

They’ve got so much to resolve between them, so many differences and similarities that they needed to compare and contrast, patch together to cushion their relationship instead of smothering it. There is a lot of work ahead of them both in this, but that hope that’s written all over Alec’s face is whispering its way into Magnus’ heart. He releases his grip on himself a fraction, allows himself to stand a little taller.

How to do this? How to tell Alec all he is thinking, to say how much he wants him yet how much they need to work things out? Not them, not the uncomplicated stuff like how they fit together, belong with one another like they’re literally two halves, but all the other stuff that threatens their happiness. How does he make Alec know he wants to work on this, that their being together completes him, in ways he didn’t know he could be complete?

“A wise man once told me…” he says, gently teasing Alec with his own words in repetition, and oh if the look he rewards him with doesn’t make him whole. The way he laughs in response, shakes his head, turns away for a second before answering and looking back at him so full of love, Magnus isn’t sure how he’s going to get through this without breaking apart.

“You know what’s not an understatement?” Magnus adds, and it’s nothing more than a fumble, a stalling tactic because there’s just too much he wants to get out. Alec’s stumble forward is in perfect sync with his own. Magnus won’t talk of magnets or anything else so clunky and ungainly, because the way they fit together is so much more than that. Graceful. Effortless. Home.

When he leans up to kiss Alec then, that seal of their lips together seems so much bigger, something more sensual and intimate than a quick kiss of forgiveness in a neon-lit alley, and it is, it is more than that. But it’s difficult to put into words how Alec tastes of home, how he replenishes something in Magnus when he kisses him that he’d never known was missing in so many of his long years alone.  

Magnus allows his hand to trail up Alec’s arm, lets his reassuring solidity soothe him, tells himself to calm. And when he pulls away, he has to keep his eyes closed for a few more seconds, just to give him time to put himself back together again, now that all the parts of him are in the same place.

Alec stands perfectly still as though he knows Magnus needs that strength from him, but the look on his face, the love in his eyes, these are the things that truly anchor him. Magnus wants to wrap himself around Alec there and then in that alley, but that probably wouldn’t be fitting for either of them considering where they are, no matter how happy and drunk everyone is inside. And besides, there is a perfectly good loft apartment that’s been echoey and monochrome in Alec’s absence; what better way to rectify that than to be there with him now?

“...yes…” Alec says to his suggestion, jubilant, and so full of relief and hopefulness, and he wraps his arm around him the very moment Magnus does the same. It’s not enough, it’s not nearly close enough, but Magnus promises himself he will cherish every second he spends by Alec’s side from now on, no matter what they are doing.  

This late night stroll through the city will be so very different from their first. Perhaps it will be just as full of thinking and overthinking as that first one that seems now so very long ago, but at least Magnus knows how this one will end. At least he can be buoyed by hope.


End file.
